Yaoi fanfiction grumbles

Sailormars Obsessed fan · Post by **Sailormars Obsessed fan** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 5:38 pm

I have this friend who is an obsessed full metal alchemist Roy/Ed yaoi fangirl and she writes these god awful fan fictions about them all the time. Basically she is just rewriting the same story over and over again with little details different. Of course each time she writes one it gets billions of positive praises from other fangirls. they say things like "wow what unique way to put them together." It makes me want to scream. It was unique maybe 5 years ago.

As a writer this bothers me. I work hard on my stories and rarely get anyone to even read my stuff, yet she throws this tripe together in less then 30 mins and gets fan fare. Its insane and really angers me.

Now I dont have anything against fan fiction yaoi or otherwise, but I do have a problem with bad writing being passed off as Shakespeare. I've politely and professionally told her that she should try something different and that her material needs some flexibility and she just gets mad at me as if I just told her she sucks. Im getting close to simply telling her off but she is a friend and I dont want to do that. she obviously cant take creative criticism so I dont know what to do. I guess I should just leave it alone.

Tempest · Post by **Tempest** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 6:04 pm

Before I take any mod actions I'd like to know what you want to accomplish with this post? ^^ i don't mean to sound rude, but is there a particular direction you want this thread to head in or are you looking for advice on the matter? I ask because you seemed to have ended it like you weren't expecting anything.

I think her getting comments is because of fan bias. It has nothing to do with talent or orignailty. She'll get comments from the Roy/Ed shippers. Just like the writers that get a butt-load of comments because they write Harry/Draco fics or Haruka and Michiru fictions. It's what the fans want. Not to say all fans are like that, but the majority will comment to what they like even though it is repetitive.

Comments are the reason that I don't submit my works to public archives. 1) I don't take my writing seriously so I could give a rats ass about the thoughts and opinions of other people. 2) Fans are bias. Especailly when it deals with Fanfiction.

But I do understand how you feel. I spent hours (and I do mean hours) on 2 oekakis a few years back. My sister was blown away because of how well my mouse-drawing ablities had gotten and no one else commented to them. The images above and below mine got a nice amount, and continued to get them even after my submission, but the only people to comment were my sister and one other person. It hurt my feelings because of the time, effort and creativity I put into them and it felt like no one cared. After that I just installed a private oekaki board and said "to hell with everyone else".

Incase anyone was wondering, It was two "costume" pics. Hank McCoy/The Beast as the Phantom of the Opera and Vash& Knives as Spider-man and Doc Ock.

Sailormars Obsessed fan · Post by **Sailormars Obsessed fan** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 6:51 pm

yeah I was asking for advice on what/if I should say to her. sorry for not making that clear.

Also opinions on the situation are always good ^_^

Rin · Post by **Rin** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 7:06 pm

I know how you feel. I have nothing against Yaoi, in fact, I like to read some every now and then, but the fangirls can be so annoying! Especially when you say that you don't like a particular pairing that's not even cannon and they call you a homophobe!

Maybe you should tell her to read over her stories to see how similur they are. What exactly does she put in her stories that's considered unoriginal? Do the characters become OOC? Is it the whole seme/uke cliche going on? It there lots of angsting?

Tempest · Post by **Tempest** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 7:14 pm

I figured as much, but I wanted more clarification. ^^; I've been getting confused a lot lately.

I've been in this boat so many times. x_X I have a few people on my GJ FList that always talk about "honest feedback" (writings, art, layout designs, music videos, ect), but everytime I give it to them they get POed with me. I'm always "finding fault" while everyone else is praising them. It seriosuly makes me mad. If you're going to post "creative materials" in a public setting (my definition of a public setting is a service that allows user comments like deviantART and fictionpress) then you have to take the good with the bad. Yes, i've gotten criticism from my work when I used to submit it publically, but I dealt with it. I didn't get pissy because someone said something negative. ::/end still sorta on-topic rant::

I'm not sure how much advice can be given on the situation. If people can't take criticism, even constructive, then there really isn't much hope to voice your opinions or concerns. It's even harder if this person is getting a lot of positive feedback from her stories. The only thing i can tell you is to give her your honest opinion or stop commenting to her work all together because she's not going to listen to criticism if she's getting praised.

I hope that other people on the forums can give you better advice.

::edit:: >_>; What Rin said.
I really need to stop taking so long to write apost.

Sailormars Obsessed fan · Post by **Sailormars Obsessed fan** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 7:15 pm

hey Im all for non cannon stuff (Rei and Usagi for instance)

I just dont like how badly written her stuff is, but I cant ever tell her this it seems.

thats good advice though I should try that.

Sailorasteroid · Post by **Sailorasteroid** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 8:07 pm

I would advise just forgetting about it. It's possible she has no talent for better writing, or no desire to write better. Maybe she likes the accolades and writes meretriciously(dictionary link) because of it, but it shouldn't diminish your own writing. It's better to write for a few good readers than for many fangirls.[/ref]

Butterscotch · Post by **Butterscotch** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 8:32 pm

I've been in a similar situation a few times. I don't even post fanfiction at FF.net anymore.

But my current situation is even more annoying >_<
I have a webcomic, which is hosted by a site called SmackJeeves (highly recomended by the way!). Anyhow, there are a lot of yaoi comics there, and it seems that anything containing yaoi/shonen-ai will instantly become popular, no matter how badly drawn, poorly written or infrequently updated. It's upsetting that people chose style over substance. Not that I want fangirls squeeing all over my comic and shipping the straight males in my comic and hating the female lead mind you ^^;;;;;

Panda · Post by **Panda** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 9:26 pm

I don't read yaoi personally (no, I'm not a homophobe...) so I can't say much about cliches and whatever. But, I do know how very frustrating it is when you work your ass off and get no credit. I've written a long (long...) Sailor Moon fanfic and asked a close friend of mine to read it (since I read her... and hated it nontheless...). Well she read half of the first (out of 32) pages and said ti was to confusing.

I asked her why, all she said was that my writing style needed work. Riiiight...

The bright sun rose above Crystal Tokyo illuminating patterns of light through the large windows within the palace. Chibi-Usa awoke in her bed early that morning and quickly dressed herself in a pair of pink overalls and a black T-shirt. She tied her hair up in her typical odango style and quickly ran down the hall to greet her childhood friend, Chibi-Rei.

"Chibi-Rei-chan! Wake up!" Chibi-Usa yelled from outside her friend’s door.
"I'm up!" Chibi-Rei said throwing her pillow at the door. Hino, Rei “Chibi-Rei” is the daughter of Rei and Yuuichirou and was born with the ability to transform into Sailor Chibi Mars. She has dark violet eyes like her both of her parents and long black hair like her mother. Although rarely called Chibi-Rei by her peers, her elders and friend Chibi-Usa began to use it affectionately after Chibi-Usa’s return from the past.

Chibi-Rei stumbled out of her bed and put on a pair of red overalls and a black shirt identical to Chibi-Usa’s. She combed her knee-long hair and tied it half way down with a white ribbon. Chibi-Rei ran out the door and greeted her friend grumpily.
"It's insane to be awake at this hour of the morning..." she said sarcastically to her pink haired friend. Chibi-Usa sighed and the two friends ran down the corridor into the deeper parts of the palace.

So anyway, my point is. Fans are retards and unless the person you're upset with has an open mind and wants to improve her prose than don't worry about it. Many people here would love your critisism.

jupiter23 · Post by **jupiter23** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 11:14 pm

If I may get off-topic for a moment here, allow me to say, Panda-san, that your story looks good, and if your friend said writing style, she was probably referring to your verb tense (I think it's called), because at one point you jump right from past tense to present tense in the middle of the paragraph. If you are going to write in the past tense, you need to stay there. Forgive me, but I get pretty picky about that sort of thing. ^_^;;

Anyway, I consider myself a yaoi/shonen-ai fan, and I have read some fanfiction. However, it seems to me from what I read that the only reason a lot of them write the stories is because they want to write a really hot sex scene between the two characters, and when they don't put an actual plot in the story, it doesn't do anything but become repetitive. (Needless to say, I've stopped reading yaoi fanfiction because of repetition.) But like everyone else said, if that is all your friend will write about, then there is really nothing you can do about it save for telling her what you think of her work in general and refusing to beta-read anymore of it for her. At least that is the only solution I could come up with. And if she gets offended, then it's really her problem.

Post by **Tiff** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 1:20 am

Meh. as much as I love RPing Yaoi and Yaoi in general, Yaoi/Yuri/Hentai fanfiction is so ridiculously easy to write, so as a result, you get a lot of poor stories.

I mean, think of the easy forumla. Uke (submissive) + Seme (dominant) + angst + buttsex = yaoi fanfic. Any yahoo could do it.

I'm with Asteroid. Just forget about it.

And Panda, I agree about the verb tense being confusing. It's also a bit irritating to read something that switches from one tense to the other, especially to someone looking for good quality writing.

Panda · Post by **Panda** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 3:15 am

Thank You so much for that. See, if that person would have just said that....

Anyway. Yah. Your friends a loser and if she has no creative spirit than that's her loss.

Post by **Tiff** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 10:53 am

Panda wrote:Thank You so much for that. See, if that person would have just said that....

Anyway. Yah. Your friends a loser and if she has no creative spirit than that's her loss.

*Nods* If your friend had just said that, then you would have known what to fix. It's annoying when people want to criticize, but none of it's constructive. =D good luck with your writing!

#1SailorMoonFan · Post by **#1SailorMoonFan** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 10:57 am

Just give her some friendly, construtive criticism. If she is really your friend, she won't lash out on you.

Off topic: This has been bothering me, how do you pronounce yaoi, yuri, and hentai?

Slrjoecool · Post by **Slrjoecool** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 11:01 am

#1SailorMoonFan wrote:Just give her some friendly, construtive criticism. If she is really your friend, she won't lash out on you.

Off topic: This has been bothering me, how do you pronounce yaoi, yuri, and hentai?

I believe they are pronounced:

Yaoi - Yow - E
Yuri - Yer - E
Hentai - Hen - tie

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong... ^^;

Post by **Tiff** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 11:02 am

Slrjoecool wrote:
I believe they are pronounced:

Yaoi - Yow - E
Yuri - Yer - E
Hentai - Hen - tie

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong... ^^;

you are correct, sir. ^^

#1SailorMoonFan · Post by **#1SailorMoonFan** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 11:19 am

Thank you. I'm still a little confused on yaoi. Is like yo like when you saw yo to someone, or is it like yow when you get hurt or something?

Post by **Tiff** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 11:20 am

#1SailorMoonFan wrote:Thank you. I'm still a little confused on yaoi. Is like yo like when you saw yo to someone, or is it like yow when you get hurt or something?

Yow, like when you get hurt.

#1SailorMoonFan · Post by **#1SailorMoonFan** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 11:22 am

Thank you. Glad to have that cleared up. My pronunciations were way off.

SeiUsa · Post by **SeiUsa** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 11:25 am

What's worse is that any kind of slash is already a target for flames, and the crappy ones don't make it any better, and they give the good ones a bad a rep. >.<